As always, there is a moment of disconnect when anyone asks from where we have emigrated. It happened on Friday, when we met with the International Student chaplain and the other international students and ESL teachers, and it happened again the following day, as we climbed on the bus with a friendly bunch of people, intent on seeing who-knows-what, but game to go anyway.
“Do you need English lessons? Where are you from?” the earnest Scottish boy asked us, helpfully holding out the application for ESL classes.
“California, and, no thank-you,” T. said automatically, but D. grinned. “Nope, already did those, got the degree,” he joked. I was surprised to be mistaken for a non-English speaker, but the Northern European couple (whom we have nicknamed Thor and Frieda) were asked as well. Which taught us one thing: no one looks like an English speaker… because there isn’t a look for speaking English.
As we joined the line (or queue) for the bus, a friendly young Muslim couple (or so we assume from her headcovering) asked us where we were from. “California,” we replied. “This weather is nothing like home, is it?” we mused. No. Nothing like home for either of us. And where is home, anyway? California? Since when did California become a country?
It’s an interesting thing to realize the difference between the United Kingdom and the United States. Americans cherished their individuality to the point of being unable to say we lived in a united state, and States Rights were still a Big Deal when the country came together, and remain a big deal on many levels. The United Kingdom is one kingdom, sure, but in name only — Scotland certainly has its share of people pulling to leave the Kingdom and be their own country, and Northern Ireland has struggled unsuccessfully to leave the overfond embrace of the monarchy for years. If the United States were less contentious and more united, I wonder if when people asked us where we were from, we would say “America.” “The United States.” Or maybe it’s just that we’re treading lightly on the perceived negatives of being from the U.S. and hopefully highlighting what we see as positives when we mention being from the West Coast.
I think it’s about individuality for us as well. It’s “Yes, I’m from the U.S., but please don’t lump me in with [pick an attitude, pick an extreme opinion, pick an obnoxious cultural habit].” It’s an unconscious distancing of ourselves from being the spokespersons for an entire nation. It’s being all too aware that when we mention the United States, people think they’ve got a reading on us, think they’ve narrowed us down, know something of who and what we are, and can put us into a labeled box in a pigeonhole. It’s a different kind of pre-judging than we’re accustomed to in the U.S… in an American airport, for example, if you say you’re from California, people have other preset notions that include San Francisco, “liberal,” granola, and other trigger words that are not necessarily applicable to anyone personally.
(Frankly, we feel sorry for the Canadians. To the Scottish ear, they sound American… how must they feel about being lumped in with the vast negatives the United States attracts?)
There is something distinctly anti-social in many of the Americans we’ve run across, in that I think the majority of us are here because we disagree with much of what is seen as the American Ideology, with what our country has been and has become. Not that all of us are radical dissidents or political activists, not that there is not a deep love for “home,” but there is the overall recognition of the United States as a sandbox bully, and so as a group we seem to distance ourselves not only by having moved abroad, but by treating each other with a wary friendliness that disallows much socializing. Americans meet, smile, and … move to opposite sides of the room. From a sociological standpoint, it’s actually kind of fascinating. (We’re sure that if the Americans in question were younger, undergraduate aged, or not in the company of children, etc., it would be a different result, but so far, our observations have remained fairly consistent.)
It was troubling and awkward to meet the bright-eyed, ebullient couple who left Pakistan three weeks ago and realize – Oh. Yes. The country in which I was born seems intent on grinding your country of origin into dust. Please realize: it’s not me. Even before having met you, I liked you just fine.. D. has had classroom discussions where people have thrown spurs into the conversation such as “Well, the United States won’t enforce the Kyoto Protocol, is there any reason for the rest of us to do anything? It’s a superpower that is dragging us all down!” and look to him to defend the indefensible, ready to hurl fierce arguments against anything he might say.
And of course, he doesn’t take the bait. We both have strongly voluble opinions, but we’re not here to do American politics. We’re from California… a whole ‘nother country. Hadn’t you heard?
– D & T
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I am experiencing the same thing–on a MUCH smaller level here. As soon as you say that you’re from the Bay Area, you get that look. While it’s annoying, it serves as a check for my own prejudices and makes me wonder who I look at that same way.
I hedge my bets – if anyone sounds ‘American’ to me, I ask if they’re from ‘North America’ – so far, no-one seems offended, and it’s usally followed by ‘Yes, from X,Y,Z’….
India
Once again, your posting strikes so many chords. I too answer ‘California’ when people ask me where I am from, as that cuts through a lot of messing about. That way they don’t have to go through the song and dance of finding out whether I’m American or Canadian, and there is even a chance they might know that California was one of the states that didn’t vote for Bush.
Good for David, for not rising to the bait. After a while, you do grow weary of being expected to defend policies and philosophies you find repugnant. But I know that you will be the best possible goodwill ambassadors.
I was in London in October 2004, just a few weeks before the election. I had a very long conversation with a gentleman reading the Times on the tube. I took the bait. It was a lovely talk, though.
This makes me wonder if this is your first visit to Europe. In time you’ll learn to nod and smile sagely with the rest of us. Your entertaining post brought me right back to my early days in France. “Celts are hairy” I was told (with great charm and in an impeccably snobby French accent, in French) by a singularly un-hirsute gentleman. He was making a Gallic joke…
Not our first trip to Europe, but our first stay in the UK. It isn’t as if prejudices don’t exist everywhere, but I really take issue with people thinking that they know all of me from a single word.
Many people flinch at the word ‘Christian’ for the selfsame reasons. Nobody wants to be lumped in with heavily mascaraed, beehived weepy preacher’s wives or shiny suited doom shouters. Odd that the word used to have some connotation of Christ…
I believe we just have lost the meaning of certain words, and California means something more than America right now to me.
I think maybe it just means ‘home…’
generally speaking, Canadians overseas seem to load up on red maple leafs and place them conspicuosly about their person.